Record Number of Single Dads Head U.S. Households

Record Number of Single Dads Head U.S. Households

Single dads are on the rise in the United States, heading a record 8 percent of American households with kids, according to a new analysis by the Pew Research Center.

There were 2.6 million households led by a single father in 2011, a ninefold increase from 1960 when that number was fewer than 300,000, Pew found. This means that men now lead about a quarter of all single-parent families.

The trend underscores the decades-long decline of the two-married-parent model of the American family. Today, about two-thirds of U.S. households with kids are led by a married couple, down from more than nine in 10 in 1960.